


Vera(lidaine) Goes Home After a Sojourn in the City

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crossover with Charles De Lint's Newford Series. Daine's shadow, Cody's legacy, and coming home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vera(lidaine) Goes Home After a Sojourn in the City

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Heatherly

 

 

"Oh, look. Poor thing." 

"What's wrong with it? Did Cody hurt her too?" 

"No, silly, Cody's our friend again. And he never comes to this world." 

"But she hurts." 

"I wonder where her shadow is?"

***

I've seen it before. 

A thin passageway, covered with dust and cobwebs and night-time, opening up into thousands of different doors, doors to stride through, doors to creep quietly into and hope you go unnoticed, doors you slam shut as soon as you open them.

These kinds of doors are pretty common in the Otherworld, honestly, but I remember these. These are the doors I came from, and there is no way in hell I'm going back. 

They didn't need me back then, and they don't need me now. Not really. Everybody's breeding up new heroes, what do they need ancient washed up memories back for? To save the world? I wonder how they got me here, anyway, since the last thing I remember is listening to a fiddler play in Fitzhenry Park. Maybe her mage worked up some mojo, although he wasn't nearly strong enough when I left. Maybe dragons could have done it, but I'm noticing a distinct lack of flames and voices in my head. I guess the Champion could've, maybe, but damn that means they must be desperate. 

***

"There. That one." 

"Oh, she has such pretty hair! It's all shiny." 

"So are her eyes." 

"Mm hm. And look, isn't he ours? The stork man? " 

"A little little. Faaaar back." 

"But ours." 

"But ours." 

***

Well. They can go fuck themselves, because I'm not her anymore. I'm not petite and slender or particularly beautiful at all, thanks to the twenty first century and the plentitude of coffeehouses in Lower Crowsea lately. My mouth is not soft, and my chin is so much more stubborn than hers none of her people would recognize it. So my eyes are the same stormy blue, but my hair is not soft smoky ringlets that tumble past my hips. Thank god. I battled fucking hard for my blonde stick straight hair and my size twelve jeans, not to mention the right to eat doughnuts, period, and I'm not about to give them up. I like black coffee and Tom Waits and four inch heels and hot wings and motorcycles. I'm not her. 

And I can't, you know. Do it anymore, either. Talk to them. 

***

"She kept her shadow sooooo veryvery long."

"Too long. Too old." 

"No wonder it hurt!" 

"But we can fix it, can't we?"

"Well, there's always the baby." 

***

That's not to say that I don't get nostalgic about the whole thing sometimes. Magic obvious and in the world and glowing bright bright amber. Healing magic, yeah, that's nice. And that sense of, of connection, you don't get that so much here. But on the other hand I don't get fucked with the way we used to. No epic battles, no political intrigues, no revenge and slowly simmering innocent love and meddling goddesses rasping in my ear. 

No, no...I've been changing my style these days. I've got a room, and a job. Waitressing, of course, what else? But still, the tips are nice, and the regulars are decent for the most part. 

There's this one guy who comes in most weekdays-I mean, he's weird, wears a cowboy hat, but he almost always asks me to sit down, have a burger with him. He used to tell me things sometimes. Like how I'm supposed to get my magic back. 

But when that didn't work out, he did me one better: he let me hunt again. She stopped hunting, I know it, but there really isn't a better feeling than killing things that need killing. In the Otherworld and in the city, yeah. Does she remember that? I don't even mind his stupid laconic attitude or the stupid obsession he's got with fixing his mistakes. I just-feel like his, somehow. 

***

"Mm hm. And look, isn't he ours? " 

"The magician?" 

"Maaaage." 

"A little little. Faaaar back." 

"But ours." 

"But ours." 

***

He's sort of like a teacher, I guess. He's nothing like hers. Not that he's mine. I mean, tall and lanky yeah, but he's a tanned, nut brown instead of pale, and his bones look nice in their skin, not like they're about to poke through at the joints. And his smile is more bitter than sweet. I like him. 

And I know he likes me. Not like that, he's got a girlfriend--and he's old--but-differently. The first time he saw me he laughed and laughed and told me I looked like a wolf in deer's clothing. Now maybe he knows and maybe he doesn't, but it's kind of nice to feel...anonymous, but known. Anyway, once he finished laughing he bought me a piece of cheesecake-this was back when I was still a size six-and told me I was one of his, and I'd better eat it or he'd throw me to the corbae. I trust him, not really sure why. There aren't many people I trust. 

My point is that I've got a nice life. I don't need to be able to-even if I miss it so much sometimes it's like someone tore my heart straight out of my fucking chest-but I don't need it. Newford has enough magic without me listening in on everyone. Plus they have two hundred cable channels and indoor plumbing. Yeah, there's no way I'm going back. 

I like my life. I like being a ragged bottle blonde. I like saying fuck and not having to feel embarrassed or proper ever, not being responsible for anyone but me, just like we used to be before. I love the look on a cuckoo's nasty face when I come for him. I love running in Cody's lonely canyon. And if I miss it sometimes, so what? I was fourteen, the last time I was there, and you can't ever go back to being fourteen again, can you? I wish I could go back, but it wouldn't be the same. I'd go to her, I wouldn't be able to help myself, and she's tame and I'm a wild thing and it would hurt. Time has passed. She'll be older, now. And everyone I know's probably dead-the pack for sure, but Cloud and-well, Ma already was. 

I wonder how they figured me out. Was it her? Or was it her teacher? Probed with magic and realized her shadow'd gone missing? Not just off into the aether or the in-between but into another world? One where Chaos can't ever touch her and nobody fucks with her brain. 

Ow! Shit, shit, what was that? My arm's bleeding. Somebody cut my arm! Shape of an unbroken circle, cut straight into my fucking shoulder. Dammit, I need to be careful with my blood. It drips onto the floor and all of a sudden my blood dribbles together and thickens into this inky black quivering thing. 

***

"Isn't that so very funny!" 

"I wonder if she'll be like Joe?" 

"The baby?" 

"Well, she's prettier than Joe." 

"I think Joe's pretty!" 

"Oh, veryvery." 

***

I don't know what it is, but now my arm hurts and it's fucking weird. 

The-blood thing-suddenly gathers itself together and tries to slither up my leg. After the sixth time I kick it off it gives a frustrated shudder and reshapes itself into a puddle on the ground just within the first door. A picture starts forming in it. 

It's her. Older. Soft, soft mouth. Stubborn chin. But her eyes...they're not soft. They're blue, yeah, but...also amber. Wild. Her face still fills me with the old betrayal-didn't want me, didn't need me, but it's harder than I thought it would be. That's a comfort. Behind her is her teacher, and damn, I didn't know him for a corbae before, and it's way diluted, but I can see it now. He has the blood. 

And there-just there-it's-oh. 

She's small. Small, but raw boned. She'll get bigger. Got her father's soft black curls and our pink lips and the magic crackling and shining all around her. And yellow eyes, she's got yellow eyes. That's why they need me. She's too much, too much for all of them, they don't know-oh, they don't even know what they have. God knows how, but she looks full blooded. On both sides. I only know one cross, and he's madder than a Batman supervillain. 

She's sane, but she won't be long, not until they stop trying to tell her she's half woman half deer and stop her looking for her right shape. She's mine. I can tell she's mine. Cub. Daughter sister student mine. 

The blood-thing wiggles enticingly, and her face washes away. It has a small gold leaf on the top of its body. After a minute, it moves to slide up my leg again, and this time I let it. 

Coffee, I'm sure gonna miss you. 

I bite the inside of my cheek and step onto the first way. 

***

"Is that all?" 

"Mm. Mm hm." 

"Her blood is so pretty. We could make the cousins just like us with her blood. All human shaped." 

"Well, we could do that with our blood, only Raven might get angry." 

"He might." 

"Do you remember what that cousin's name was again? The one all in love with the shiny-haired crooked nosed girl? He might like the blood." 

"Nooo. But we can find him." 

"We can find him." 

 


End file.
